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Highlights
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Evolution and developments of cybercrimes into cyber-focused and cyber-enabled crimes.
•Survey of research articles on the application of Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) techniques in preventing cybercrimes.
•Research gaps and future areas of research on SCP in cybercrimes.
Abstract
Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) is a criminological approach that is shown to reduce crime opportunities drawing from five different strategies comprising 25 techniques. With the global increase in cybercrime, practitioners and researchers are increasingly investigating opportunities for applying SCP strategies and techniques to prevent cyber-focused and cyber-enabled crimes. Recent research proposes ways that SCP can be applied to cybercrime. Yet most of this research utilizes only a few of the SCP techniques and the linkages between the SCP techniques and opportunities for reducing cybercrimes are rarely made explicit. In this paper we evaluate the relevance of the full spectrum of SCP techniques to cybercrime and explicate how computer scientists, cybercrime and cybersecurity researchers and practitioners apply SCP principles to prevent and control cyber-enabled crime. Through a focused systematic review of 352 articles across computer science, criminal justice and criminology literature using the PRISMA method, this paper clarifies terminologies, explores the rise of cybercrimes, and explains the value of SCP for responding to cybercrimes. We provide a review of the current research undertaken to apply SCP to cybercrimes and conclude with a discussion on research gaps and potential future areas of research.
Keywords
Cybercrime
Situational crime prevention
SCP
Criminology
Cyber-focused crime
Cyber-enabled crime
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About Mr. Heemeng Ho Mr. Heemeng Ho received his BEng in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1999 from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and his MSc in Information Security (Distinction) in 2012 from Royal Holloway University of London, UK. He is also currently employed as a Senior Lecturer at the Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore which is also sponsoring his PhD studies. He has more than 20 years of experience working in the academic field as well as in the industry where he was formerly employed as an IT auditor and cybersecurity manager. He holds several cybersecurity industry certifications such as CISSP, CISA, GMON, GCIH, RHCE, MCSE, etc. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the cybersecurity group in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland under the supervision of Professor Ryan Ko and Professor Lorraine Mazerolle. His current research interest is in the application of Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) techniques in the prevention of cybercrimes.
About Professor Ryan Ko Professor Ryan Ko is Chair and Director of UQ Cyber Security at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is also Discipline Leader of the Cyber Security and Software Engineering Discipline at the School of ITEE at UQ. His applied research in cyber security focuses on 'returning control of data to cloud computing users'. His research reduces users' reliance on trusting third-parties and focusses on (1) provenance logging and reconstruction, traceability and (2) privacy-preserving data processing (homomorphic encryption). Both his research foci are recognised nationally and internationally, receiving conference Best Paper Awards (2011, 2015, 2017), and technology transfers locally and internationally. He serves as Technology Advisory Board member of the NZX-listed (NZE:LIC) Livestock Improvement Cooperation (LIC), Nyriad, and expert advisor to INTERPOL, NZDF, NZ Minister for Communications' Cyber Security Skills Taskforce, and one of four nationally-appointed Technical Adviser for the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, Ministry of Justice. Prior to UQ, he was the highest funded computer scientist in New Zealand, as Principal Investigator and Science Leader of the largest MBIE-awarded cloud security research funding for STRATUS (NZ$12.2 million) from 2014 to 2018. STRATUS' research was awarded 'Gold' by MBIE (i.e. top performing project, 2017), adopted by INTERPOL and featured in NZ's Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's NZ Cyber Security Strategy 2016 annual report. Prof Ko has a strong record in establishing university-wide, multi-disciplinary academic research and education programmes, including NZ's first cyber security graduate research programme and lab (CROW) in 2012, NZ's first Master of Cyber Security (encompassing technical and law courses), the NZ Cyber Security Challenge since 2014, and the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science – Te Puna Haumaru, the Evidence Based Policing Centre (at Wellington with NZ Police and ESR), and Master of Security and Crime Science in 2017. The Institute integrates research expertise across 6 faculties, covering computer science, statistics, psychology, crime science, Maori and indigenous studies, law, management, and social science. Within the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 technical committee, Prof Ko served as Editor, ISO/IEC 21878 “Information technology – Security techniques – Security guidelines for design and implementation of virtualized servers”, and hosted the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 meetings at Hamilton, New Zealand, in 2017. Ko serves in the MBIE College of Assessors (since 2015) as lead assessor and assessor for the Endeavour Fund and Catalyst Fund proposals, and have externally examined 8 PhD and 2 Masters theses. He has published more than 100 publications, including books, refereed conference papers, journal papers, book chapters, encyclopaedia entries, technical reports and international patents (PCT). He served in technical programme committees for more than 30 IEEE conferences/workshops, associate editor for 6 journals, and series editor for Elsevier's security books. Ko has a track record developing international and national cyber security curricula, including the co-creation of the gold-standard (ISC)2 Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) curriculum (2014-2015), and authoring the initial draft of the NZQA's Level 6 Cybersecurity Diploma qualification as part of the NZ Cyber Security Skills Taskforce. He contributed to the establishment of the Government of Tonga CERT and CERT NZ, and has spoken regularly on cyber and cloud security research across the globe, including the Republic of Korea National Assembly (2018), INTERPOL (2017), TEDx Ruakura (2017), and the NZ Members of Parliament (2016). For his contributions to the field, he was elected Fellow of Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) (2016), the Singapore Government (Enterprise Singapore)’s Young Professional Award (2018), and awarded the inaugural CSA Ron Knode Service Award 2012. For his research and teaching excellence, he was awarded the University of Waikato's Early Career Excellence Award (2014), Faculty Teaching Excellence Awards (2014, 2015, 2018), and the Nola Campbell eLearning Excellence Award (2014). He is also recipient of the 2015 (ISC)2 Information Security Leadership Award.
About Professor Lorraine Mazerolle Lorraine Mazerolle is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (2010–2015), a Professorial Research Fellow at The University of Queensland, School of Social Science, and a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course. Her research interests are in experimental criminology, policing, drug law enforcement, regulatory crime control, and crime prevention. She is the co-chair Crime and Justice Group, Campbell Collaboration, , immediate past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Criminology, past Chair of the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) Division of Experimental Criminology, an elected Fellow and past president of the Academy of Experimental Criminology (AEC), and an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences, Australia and the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Professor Mazerolle is the recipient of the ASC Division of Experimental Criminology Jerry Lee Lifetime Achievement Award (2019), Partners in Research Excellence Award The University of Queensland (2019), CEBCP Distinguished Achievement Award of the Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy at George Mason University (2019), ASC Sellin-Glueck Award (2018), the ASC Division of Policing Distinguished Scholar Award (2016), the AEC Joan McCord Award (2013), and the ASC Division of International Criminology Freda Adler Distinguished Scholar Award (2010). She has won numerous US and Australian national competitive research grants on topics such as partnership policing, police engagement with high risk people and disadvantaged communities, community regulation, problem-oriented policing, police technologies, civil remedies, street-level drug enforcement and policing public housing sites
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.